Science IS religion

[mikkel_the_dane]

TLDR. I see you have trouble responding to a simple post.

Well, here is my definition of evil:
morally reprehensible; arising from actual or imputed bad(feeling) character or conduct; causing discomfort or repulsion(feelings and thus not objective as expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations); causing harm(a feeling).
Definition of EVIL
All of the words central to evil are the results of feelings towards something and are not based on sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers.
I don't feel that that dad's religion is evil. I don't like(a feeling), what he does. dad properly like what he does.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well, here is my definition of evil:
morally reprehensible; arising from actual or imputed bad(feeling) character or conduct; causing discomfort or repulsion(feelings and thus not objective as expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations); causing harm(a feeling).
Definition of EVIL
All of the words central to evil are the results of feelings towards something and are not based on sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers.
I don't feel that that dad's religion is evil. I don't like(a feeling), what he does. dad properly like what he does.

Not really what I would call much of a working definition. And you do not appear to understand dad's religion.

I could probably do better. How about an act or action or in this case a belief that tends to harm others much more than it helps others. By that definition dad's religion is evil.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not really what I would call much of a working definition. And you do not appear to understand dad's religion.

I could probably do better. How about an act or action or in this case a belief that tends to harm others much more than it helps others. By that definition dad's religion is evil.

How come that you need to help others more than you harm them? How do you know that?

 

[Truly Enlightened]

This has been said "ad infinitum". Religion is not science. Religion is based on a conceptualized belief-system, and not on perceptualized objective evidence. Religions all use the unknown, the unseen, the unfalsifiable, the unverifiable, or some supernatural metaphysical force, as a crucial part of its belief-based-narrative. Science uses peer-reviews, objectivity, falsifiability, observability, testability, experiments, to verify its high-certainty narratives. Religious narratives offer a zero degree of certainty, and zero evidence to support itself. Science offers a high degree of certainty, with a convergence of objective evidence to support its narratives. The only difference between a belief in religious superstitions, the supernatural, or any paranormal activity, and "magic", is that most adults know that magic is just a trick.

It is also a fallacy(undistributed middle), to say that, "Religion is based on faith. Science is based on faith. So science is a religion". It is like saying that, if "All students carry backpacks. And, Professor Brown carries a backpack; Then Prof. Brown must also be a student". Any argument in this form, will always fail to establish a valid conclusion. Here is the logic;

1. Religion is based on faith.
2. Science is based on faith.
3. Both religion and science give us knowledge of the unseen world.
4. All knowledge of the unseen world must be based on faith.
5. So science is a religion.

It is the 4th step that begs the question, and assumes as fact, the very thing we want to prove. Concluding that science is a religion is easy, especially, if you have already assumed that science is a religion. Science is not a religion. No matter how much you avoid your burden of proof, create your own logic, or falsely equivocate, or conflate the words in both definitions, or even try to deflate the value of the scientific method of inquiry, science will still never be a religion. However, I have "religiously" devoted my adult life in the pursuit of understanding scientifically-based truths and certainties. In this sense I am religious, not science.

All religions have three central properties. All religions are social systems. All religions endorse (and even require) something that is supernatural. And, all religions designate something that is holy or sacred. Many significant scientific advances were made by lone scientists working in their labs or out in the fields. No science endorses anything that is supernatural, or based on superstitions. Weird, yes, but not supernatural or superstition. And, no science countenances anything that is holy, or sacred. Nothing is sacred in science, period. I also consider Religions as not only potentially evil, but insidious as well. It is encroaching into my freedoms not to be religious, and certainly into a woman's freedom to make choices about their reproductive system(Alabama new abortion laws).

Evil, Good, Logic, Reason, or Love, are all abstract concepts, and are all an essential part of the human condition. You don't need science to explain these terms. A good dictionary will do. These terms are obvious, self-evident, and do not need to be demonstrated or explained. To give them concreteness would be creating a "reification fallacy", since they are NOT physical things. And, their existence, conceptually, is not in dispute. We also don't need scientific evidence to observe acts/statements of stupidity either. This is also self-evident.

People that believe in the reality that they want possible, tend not to believe in the reality that is possible. This can be dangerous, by eroding our ability to critically think and excel. If "God did it all" becomes your default explanation for all things unexplained, then critical thinking becomes irrelevant. And, the "dumbing-down" of our intellect will spread. People will just ignore where the evidence leads them. Confirmation bias, and cognitive dissonance will rule. Lets be honest. Religion cannot cure a single disease. It cannot usefully explain a single physical fact. It cannot explain where humans came from, where life came from, or where the universe came from. Religion cannot explain volcanoes, earthquakes, thunderstorms, hurricanes, epidemics, allergies, birth defects, or any diseases. Religion cannot usefully explain a single thing. Science, however, explains all these and a lot more. So how can any reasonable person think that science is a religion?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
1. Religion is based on faith.
2. Science is based on faith.
3. Both religion and science give us knowledge of the unseen world.
4. All knowledge of the unseen world must be based on faith.
5. So science is a religion.
...

#4 is to vague as it is to simple.

All knowledge is predicated on trust in the following sense: That you as you can in general trust reason and logic(rationalism) and your experience(empiricism) and that the world is fair; i.e. no trickster god(s), no matrix, no Boltzmann Brain, no brain in a vat, no evil demon and so on.
But that #4 assumption is without knowledge. It is the basis of knowledge.

So start there: Trust in your general ability to understand the world and that the world is fair. That is neither natural nor supernatural.
The world is unknowable as having reality independent of your mind other than the thing in itself. To speak of knowledge beyond the thing in itself as if you know more about it than it is the thing in itself, is a contradiction in effect. You say you know something you can't know.

As for falsifiable and falsification that has nothing to do with science in general. That is skepticism and in practice it is simple.
Can we observe humans, which use science and rationalism as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.
Can we observe humans, which use religion as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.

Then how do you explain that without judging one of them to be wrong, because both cases are facts. That is the end game in science. Science is based on a conceptualized belief-system, namely that you can trust(faith) in general reason, logic and evidence and that you can trust(faith) the world independent of your mind to be fair.

So yes, science is faith. It is just neutral as for the metaphysics and neither psychical, materialism, naturalism, dualism or idealism. It is in practice a variant of a form of monism, because it assumes that all the elements are interconnected.
But some people use science for more than it can do. Just as some people use God for more than she can do.

 

[Subduction Zone]

How come that you need to help others more than you harm them? How do you know that?

One does not "need to". Another poorly formed question.

 

[Subduction Zone]

#4 is to vague as it is to simple.

All knowledge is predicated on trust in the following sense: That you as you can in general trust reason and logic(rationalism) and your experience(empiricism) and that the world is fair; i.e. no trickster god(s), no matrix, no Boltzmann Brain, no brain in a vat, no evil demon and so on.
But that #4 assumption is without knowledge. It is the basis of knowledge.

So start there: Trust in your general ability to understand the world and that the world is fair. That is neither natural nor supernatural.
The world is unknowable as having reality independent of your mind other than the thing in itself. To speak of knowledge beyond the thing in itself as if you know more about it than it is the thing in itself, is a contradiction in effect. You say you know something you can't know.

As for falsifiable and falsification that has nothing to do with science in general. That is skepticism and in practice it is simple.
Can we observe humans, which use science and rationalism as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.
Can we observe humans, which use religion as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.

Then how do you explain that without judging one of them to be wrong, because both cases are facts. That is the end game in science. Science is based on a conceptualized belief-system, namely that you can trust(faith) in general reason, logic and evidence and that you can trust(faith) the world independent of your mind to be fair.

So yes, science is faith. It is just neutral as for the metaphysics and neither psychical, materialism, naturalism, dualism or idealism. It is in practice a variant of a form of monism, because it assumes that all the elements are interconnected.
But some people use science for more than it can do. Just as some people use God for more than she can do.

It appears that you do not understand the scientific method. Forming a testable hypothesis is key to the method. And testable means falsifiable.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It appears that you do not understand the scientific method. Forming a testable hypothesis is key to the method. And testable means falsifiable.

Can we observe that you and I understand certain words differently? Yes.
Can we observe that one of us really don't understand? No, because that is a judgment in the other person and not an observation.
Can we observe that we act differently in how we understand some aspects of the world? Yes.

What more do you want as for facts? We use our brains differently and that is a fact.

And you are nothing, because the definition of Subduction Zone is nothing. I win, I define you to be nothing, because I know how words work. Well, you don't know how a definition of a word works.
You made a rule of morality involving the word "evil". I explained that the word "evil" is a stand-in word for bad. Bad is a feeling or emotion. You can't even tell the difference between a rule and how to describe, what a word is about.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

#4 is to vague as it is to simple.

All knowledge is predicated on trust in the following sense: That you as you can in general trust reason and logic(rationalism) and your experience(empiricism) and that the world is fair; i.e. no trickster god(s), no matrix, no Boltzmann Brain, no brain in a vat, no evil demon and so on.
But that #4 assumption is without knowledge. It is the basis of knowledge.

So start there: Trust in your general ability to understand the world and that the world is fair. That is neither natural nor supernatural.
The world is unknowable as having reality independent of your mind other than the thing in itself. To speak of knowledge beyond the thing in itself as if you know more about it than it is the thing in itself, is a contradiction in effect. You say you know something you can't know.

As for falsifiable and falsification that has nothing to do with science in general. That is skepticism and in practice it is simple.
Can we observe humans, which use science and rationalism as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.
Can we observe humans, which use religion as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.

Then how do you explain that without judging one of them to be wrong, because both cases are facts. That is the end game in science. Science is based on a conceptualized belief-system, namely that you can trust(faith) in general reason, logic and evidence and that you can trust(faith) the world independent of your mind to be fair.

So yes, science is faith. It is just neutral as for the metaphysics and neither psychical, materialism, naturalism, dualism or idealism. It is in practice a variant of a form of monism, because it assumes that all the elements are interconnected.
But some people use science for more than it can do. Just as some people use God for more than she can do.

I realize that reality can sometimes be a linguist's playground. But, generally, reality is seen for its simplicity, not for its complexity. Premise #4 too vague, and too simple? Other than beginning with a straw man, and using an oxymoron(simple AND vague?), its meaning is very clear. It means that the acquiring of knowledge through religion or science, about anything that we don't know(unseen world), must be based on faith. This is of course wrong and fallacious. I have specifically explained why in the last post. Science is based on objective evidence, and religion is based on faith and no evidence. Religion seems also to be based on how well some people can manufacture the most credible sounding fallacies, as gap-fill for the ignorant, and as unfalsifiable truths for religious indoctrinates to hide behind.

Knowledge is NOT predicated on trust. It is predicated on what actually works. You can believe or pray that you can fly, but it just won't happen. You also make no distinction between conceptual knowledge(God, superstitions, fairness, matrix, brain in a vat, etc.), and perceptual knowledge(physical laws, empirical laws, materialism, etc.). The more certainty you have, the less trust you need. The world obeys the natural law of cause and effect. There is no evidence of anything supernatural, paranormal, or metaphysical. Unless you know of any?

As for falsifiable and falsification that has nothing to do with science in general. That is skepticism and in practice it is simple.
Can we observe humans, which use science and rationalism as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.
Can we observe humans, which use religion as a way to explain of all the world in practice? Yes, that is observable and thus a fact.

Just silly statements. I can falsify Gravity, if I throw a ball in the air and it stays in the air. I can falsify Evolution if a modern rabbit is found lying next to a 65M year old dinosaur fossil. I can falsify Electromagnetism, if two like charges do not repel each other. I can falsify General relativity, if light does not travel at 186,282 mps in a vacuum. So, falsification is very important for establishing any valid scientific explanation. Unlike religion. You are committing the same fallacy(undistributed middle), by claiming that what is observe as being fact. Do you really expect to explain all of the world by observing humans? Do you really think that what we observe through science or religion, becomes a fact because it is observed? I'm sure, even you, can see the obvious flaws in that line of reasoning.

You should ask your own straw man to judge which case is wrong, since only one case involves facts? The default position is always supported by the facts. Science is NOT faith, but I do have faith in science. I also have no idea of what is "independent of my mind". Maybe you can demonstrate this? You also seem to be conflating faith with confidence. I would say that science IS confidence.

I'm afraid your last paragraph was just too unintelligible for me to understand. But it certainly does sound good.
​

 

[Subduction Zone]

Can we observe that you and I understand certain words differently? Yes.
Can we observe that one of us really don't understand? No, because that is a judgment in the other person and not an observation.
Can we observe that we act differently in how we understand some aspects of the world? Yes.

What more do you want as for facts? We use our brains differently and that is a fact.

And you are nothing, because the definition of Subduction Zone is nothing. I win, I define you to be nothing, because I know how words work. Well, you don't know how a definition of a word works.
You made a rule of morality involving the word "evil". I explained that the word "evil" is a stand-in word for bad. Bad is a feeling or emotion. You can't even tell the difference between a rule and how to describe, what a word is about.

Please, you made an error. You thought that falsifiability had more to do with skepticism than science. You could not have been more wrong. If you cannot own up to this error it only looks as if you are trolling. Let me go back and pull the quote out of your prior post:

"As for falsifiable and falsification that has nothing to do with science in general. That is skepticism and in practice it is simple."

That is an amazingly wrong and ignorant statement. Here is a very simple flow chart of the scientific hypothesis:

Do you see the third step? As to what a hypothesis is:

"Scientific hypothesis, an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed in the natural world. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesisare falsifiability and testability, which are reflected in an “If…then” statement summarizing the idea and in the ability to be supported or refuted through observation and experimentation. The notion of the scientific hypothesis as both falsifiable and testable was advanced in the mid-20th century by Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper."

scientific hypothesis | Definition, Formulation, & Example

 

[dad]

Magic isn’t science.

There are two meanings to the word “magic”.

One is that it is supernatural power, which defied the law of physics or law of nature, like the magic, witchcraft and sorcery of the Harry Potter’s series. This is fiction and often seen in modern novels or in TV shows or in cinema (genre like sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, horror), or found in traditional stories, like myths, legends, fables, fairytales or folklore, such as the Bible and the Qur’an (eg talking ants).

The second is the one they referred to trick, sleight of hand, illusion; this trickery that fools a person or people into thinking it is real.

Neither definitions to magic are real.

All you are attempting to do is twist magic or miracles to be science, when you are weakly attempting to m make your stories come true.

There other myths out there where snakes, eagles, horses could talk (the eagle and snake in the Epic of Etana,, the fables of Aesop, the Irish or Scottish-Gaelic fairytales, the Grimm brothers’ fairytales, Mr Ed, Francis the talking mule, and the abundance of cartoon characters from Disney or Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes, etc) or that humans could understand the languages of animals (seers in Ancient Greek myths, or Doctor Dolittle in children books, or Harry Potter speaking Parseltongue). That's what Genesis and Numbers have in common with storytelling of various cultures, and none of them are real, including your talking serpent and donkey in the Bible - all fictional.

When you have talking animals (eg Genesis’ serpent or Numbers’ donkey) in stories or doing stuffs (eg ravens bring meat and bread to Elijah) that exhibit human behaviors, then you have fables inside the Bible.

Magic is whatever seems weird to your limited scope and breadth of knowledge and comprehension. Telepathic communication is ho hum par for the course in the spiritual realm. Stop trying to tie down the rest of us with the narrow cultish little limitations of physical science and pseudo sciences.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Magic is whatever seems weird to your limited scope and breadth of knowledge and comprehension. Telepathic communication is ho hum par for the course in the spiritual realm. Stop trying to tie down the rest of us with the narrow cultish little limitations of physical science and pseudo sciences.

And telepathy fails every time that it is tested. Like "magic" it does not appear to exist in the real world.

 

[dad]

They...

Whatever they do or do not do what YOU must do is support your belief claimed as science here. After umpteen posts of drum roles about how great you are and what you could post we get more useless empty spam -- of course.

 

[dad]

And telepathy fails every time that it is tested. Like "magic" it does not appear to exist in the real world.

Pseudo science can no more test soul to soul communication than they can test for God. Get serious.

 

[dad]

Sure birds can carry stuff, but you are not paying attention, dad.

Where did the bread come from?

The story is that Elijah was hiding and living in remote area, where whole region suffered from drought, and drought often lead to shortage of flour, because there are not enough water to grow crops of wheat. And to make bread dough, you would still need some water.

How long did the drought last for? How much regions did the drought and famine covered? If there are food and water shortage in large region, then where did the ravens get the bread from?

So where did the bread come from, if farmers don’t have water for their crops or bakers don’t have water for their flour to make doughs?

Did the ravens farm the wheat crops, make flours, make doughs, and bake the bread?

Do you see where I am getting at?

The story about Elijah and the ravens and the drought, seemed to be fabricated for children stories, where it lack details, such as where did bread come from.

God can send bread from heaven as displayed for Moses. He can do anything. He could have had a baker leave it out for the crows. Who knows. The important thing is that you have no basis for your doubts.

 

[dad]

Again, this is another example of what fable is.

Thank you for that example about fishes, because you have just given me another reason why the gospels also contain fables.

Here is another example of fable, Revelation are filled with strange creatures, like the multiple headed dragon, or the Two Beasts. More fables.

The witnessed events in a real life have o bearing to fables, nor are they subject to your baseless doubting.

In Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel has a vision of four angels or “four living creatures”:



So each angel have a body like human, but each with multiple wings (four wings), a head multiple with multiple faces (of a lion, ox, eagle and a man).

Correct. The spiritual realm seems strange to a fishbowl mind.

Christians in the past have often scoff off at Egyptian myths where the gods have bodies of human, but heads of some sort of animals, like that of a lion (or lioness, eg Sekhmet, Hathor), cat (Bastet), jackal (Anubis), falcon or hawk (Horus, Ra), cow (Nut, Hathor), etc, or they laugh at the Greek myths with the Minotaur, Typhon, etc.

I have no doubt that real spirits were involved in history. Remember that there are evil spirits also.

In some of the imagery of Babylonian, Assyrian and Syrian-Canaanite myths, the gods and goddesses possessed wings, just like your Ezekiel’s vision of the four creatures. Again, that’s more fables in the Bible.

Perhaps the ability to fly was notable. Just because you can't fly does not elevate your incredulity.

So where did Ezekiel get his imageries of angels with four faces and four wings from?

He saw them.

Oh, didn’t Ezekiel reside in Babylon with other hostages when Jerusalem had fallen in 6th century BCE? Marduk, Ninurta, Adam Ishtar were all winged gods.

Interesting, maybe his accounts influenced them? Ha.

There is a link between the Old Testament story of winged angels and that of Babylon’s winged gods and goddesses.

Spirits have similarities. No news there.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Whatever they do or do not do what YOU must do is support your belief claimed as science here. After umpteen posts of drum roles about how great you are and what you could post we get more useless empty spam -- of course.

dad, why do you you lie? You know what the offer is, if anyone is spamming you are when you post and run away.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Pseudo science can no more test soul to soul communication than they can test for God. Get serious.

Well it is a good thing that I don't practice pseudo science then, isn't it?

By the way trying to change the argument is not honest.

 

[gnostic]

God can send bread from heaven as displayed for Moses. He can do anything. He could have had a baker leave it out for the crows. Who knows. The important thing is that you have no basis for your doubts.

Ask a question, and you will get a dishonest and utterly absurd answer as the above.

You continue to make thing up.

The Bible has so much details left out, but you are willing to fill them up with more make-believe.

 

[gnostic]

Interesting, maybe his accounts influenced them? Ha.

There are imageries of Babylonian and Assyrian gods with wings since the Bronze Age, and centuries before the Babylonian Exile. I think it highly unlikely that the Babylonian would copy Hebrew/Jewish religion, since monotheism in Judah has been around little more than half-a-century before Jerusalem had fallen.

Monotheistic Judaism was a brainchild of King Josiah’s politics and reform.

But never mind, dad, I know you are incapable of learning history, as you have tendencies to ignore history, with you preferring make-belief in biblical myths and fables.